But I thought all cultures were the same…

The English have managed to sell Shakespeare as one of the pillars of their language, because theirs is a more pragmatic country than ours,” Puértolas said. “Spain is not a place that knows how to acknowledge its culture.”

Hundreds of words inform us about, well, quixotic attempts to locate Cervantes’ remains, but apparently no one in Spain is as (just barely) energized enough to try writing a new book after 400 years.